It is also a vivid account of the author's struggles with this house, a droll narrative about running a scarcely viable farm and the sad story of the elderly couple who live in the lodge with their son.
Her uncle, who shut off all disordered rooms, also shut out disordered situations; Guinness now faces the consequences of his well-meaning denial, especially when it comes to the farm's elderly stewards, Joe and Susie Kirwan, who inhabit its gate lodge with their disabled son.
Eventually, Fatboy and Poppy both go to lodge with their friend, Dot.
As a part-time resident of Africa, I've grown bored with southern and East African lodges with their relentless display of Africa without the Africans.
Kielder Observatory has daily events such as night sky safaris, aurora nights and full-moon parties, while Kielder Waterside Park (lodges sleeping four from £304 a week) has new luxury lodges with their own stargazing pods.
An East African drought has severely affected the rangelands, and cattle herders, who nowadays are armed with AK-47s, have in recent months been aggressively pushing into Laikipia's mosaic of privately owned wildlife conservancies, ranches, and safari lodges with their livestock.
But if you're really looking for a bare-bones, off-grid experience, you should forget about these lodges, with their teatimes and solar panels, and sign up for one of the Southwest Nordic Center's yurts, round, tentlike structures designed, in this case, specifically for winter use.
Combined with the Jungle Book suite of animals and the bamboo lodges, with their sprawling gardens and troops of monkeys, they make you feel as if you are stepping back into the British Raj.
Other Craftsman homes followed the English Tudor or Cotswold tradition, or imitated Bavarian hunting lodges with their half-timbered stucco walls and steep, shingled roofs.
If this amped-up snake isn't scary enough, there's also a reference to that urban myth about Candiru, the tiny fish that are said to swim up the urethra and lodge themselves with their painful spines.
Mr. Blaauw said he and his neighbors lodged complaints with their alderman at the time, Manuel Flores, arguing that plans for development would be bad for the neighborhood.
